Lisa Arthurworrey: ‘I can handle hostile clients’

The social worker at the centre of the Victoria Climbié case has told a Care Standards Tribunal hearing she would be able to manage hostile clients if she was given the opportunity to work as a social worker again.Lisa Arthurworrey, who is appealing against the General Social Care Council’s refusal to register her, said her psychologist had likened her position to someone in “a concentration camp”, surrounded by conflict.

Hostility

Since Victoria’s death in February 2000, Arthurworrey said she had been called a child murderer by neighbours and hounded in her job as a housing and debt adviser, on one occasion being issued with a death threat by a colleague. She has been signed off sick from work since December 2007.“I understand some people hate me, some people like me,” she said, adding she accepted her treatment in the media because “somebody had to get it”.

Handling conflict

But when questioned about how she dealt with problems and their possible impact on working as a social worker again, she said she was sure she would be able to handle conflict with clients and had had several successes in her current role. The General Social Care Council decided not to register Arthurworrey on several grounds, including competency. During a two-day hearing last week, the Care Standards Tribunal heard Arthurworrey admit she sent inappropriate e-mails to the GSCC, as a result of feeling “crushed by the system”, and also that she failed to inform the regulator of two criminal convictions. She also admitted failings in Victoria’s case but said she would have been able to protect the eight-year-old had she been working to statutory child protection guidelines.